The voices / 42 fragments

Izaak Walton

1593 AD — 1683 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

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Historical source references

The Complete Angler
Life of Donne
Life of Herbert
The Angler
Conscience · anthology attribution: Izaak Walton
Mirth · anthology attribution: Izaak Walton
Page 13 · printed citation: Izaak Walton · subject: Angling
Page 230 · printed citation: Izaak Walton · subject: Riches
Printed page 29 · quotation 20 · Izaak Walton · The Compleat Angler
Printed page 30 · quotation 5 · Izaak Walton · The Compleat Angler
Printed page 30 · quotation 6 · Izaak Walton · The Compleat Angler
Printed page 30 · quotation 8 · Izaak Walton · The Compleat Angler
Printed page 30 · quotation 9 · Izaak Walton · The Compleat Angler
Quote1457 · printed citation: IZAAK WALTON: The Complete Angler

Archive entries

01c. 1638 AD

Of which, if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.

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02c. 1638 AD

Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt.

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03c. 1638 AD

As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.

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04c. 1638 AD

I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a rainy evening to read this following discourse; and that if he be an honest angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a fishing.

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05c. 1638 AD

As the Italians say, Good company in a journey makes the way to seem the shorter.

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06c. 1638 AD

I am, sir, a Brother of the Angle.

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07c. 1638 AD

It [angling] deserves commendations; . . . it is an art worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man.

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08c. 1638 AD

Angling is somewhat like poetry,—men are to be born so.

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09c. 1638 AD

Doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward to itself.

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10c. 1638 AD

Sir Henry Wotton was a most dear lover and a frequent practiser of the Art of Angling; of which he would say, "'T was an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;" and "that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practised it."

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11c. 1638 AD

You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it.

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12c. 1638 AD

I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, "That which is everybody's business is nobody's business."

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13c. 1638 AD

Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.

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14c. 1638 AD

An excellent angler, and now with God.

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15c. 1638 AD

Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.

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16c. 1638 AD

No man can lose what he never had.

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17c. 1638 AD

We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did;" and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.

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18c. 1638 AD

Thus use your frog: put your hook—I mean the arming wire—through his mouth and out at his gills, and then with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg with only one stitch to the arming wire of your hook, or tie the frog's leg above the upper joint to the armed wire; and in so doing use him as though you loved him.

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19c. 1638 AD

This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men.

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20c. 1638 AD

Health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of,—a blessing that money cannot buy.

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21c. 1638 AD

And upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his Providence, and be quiet and go a-angling.

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22c. 1638 AD

But God, who is able to prevail, wrestled with him; marked him for his own.

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23c. 1638 AD

The great secretary of Nature,—Sir Francis Bacon.

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24c. 1638 AD

Oh, the gallant fisher's life! It is the best of any; 'T is full of pleasure, void of strife, And 't is beloved by many.

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Izaak Walton

Archive entries

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